Pathway to Doom
by timydamonkey
Summary: [AU] 'It is time,' muttered Cornelius Fudge, wand trained on Harry, 'for you to fulfil your purpose in life. It is time for YouKnowWho to die.' TEMPORARY HIATUS.
1. Hell's Doors

Pathway to Doom:

**Disclaimer: **I don't own HP.

**Summary: **AU "It is time," muttered Cornelius Fudge, wand trained on Harry, "for you to fulfil your purpose in life. It is time for You-Know-Who to die."

**A/N: **Very short prologue.

Please review.

Prologue: Hell's Doors:

A fourteen-year-old Harry Potter sat sullenly in a place that was very reminiscent of a cell. He was staring blankly at a copy of the Daily Prophet (he'd always been allowed to have it delivered so that he could have at least _some _idea about what went on outside his caged life), staring at the front headline.

_DARK LORD REBORN_

Harry shivered. He felt horrible about the pain and torture it meant that Voldemort could inflict on others (he wasn't stupid, he knew all about Voldemort, the Ministry had seen fit to educate him about THAT), but the thing he found worst was what this would mean to the Ministry. _Wonder what they're going to do to their precious Boy-Who-Lived now, _he thought spitefully. Being locked away for most of his life had done a number on his temper, and though he hadn't known anything else, he envied those who were free to roam around the Wizarding World. Hell, he even envied those in Azkaban, because at least they'd had a chance to live an ordinary life before being thrown in there. They'd lived their lives: he wanted a chance to live his.

Shaking his head angrily, he threw the newspaper against the damp cell wall, listening to the drips and clenching his fists in anger that this place was the only place he could actually call a home. He watched it bounce back slightly off the wall from the force, and then land on the murky, brown cell floor that always seemed to get worse near the corner of the cage.

Wiping his fringe out of his eyes with dirty hands, he scowled at the wall, willing it to melt and let him free, not for the first time in his life. It'd got to a point where he barely knew how old he was; how could he measure time when he could barely tell light from dark?

As far as Harry could remember, he'd been alone except for occasional visits. He assumed that when he was younger, still a baby and a toddler, he'd have had to have some help, although it seemed that he couldn't remember it. Men walked into the room to hand him dinner or water (better stuff, he imagined, than the people sentenced to Azkaban got, which made him feel sorry for them, despite his slight envy) and to chuck his newspapers. A couple would grunt or not at him, occasionally a few smiled. Harry just scowled. How _dare _they have the gall to smile at him and act like they were best friends when all they'd done for him was shoved him in a cage with no cause! His eyes were like razors, cutting into them, and he left most Ministry members feeling quite unnerved.

Once, when he was younger (Harry reckoned about five, but he could have been as old as eight), a woman had came in and talked with him. He'd been overjoyed, then say and asked why did they do this to him, and he could still remember her words – the most stupid reason he'd ever heard.

They think that such powers aren't meant to exist. There are two other powers like yours, and they are enough. They cannot take another chance like they once did.

Harry vaguely remembered being taught spells when he was younger (he could grasp them easily and remembered them, but he'd mostly been given theory), but he hadn't learnt anything in so long. He assumed that his power had grown or something, and it scared them. It made him shake in seething rage, because he couldn't help it. _Why couldn't this happen to anyone else but me? This isn't fair!_

Suddenly, the door opened and Harry's gaze snapped toward it as he hissed like an angry cat. Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, walked into the room, smiling pleasantly at Harry, who just gritted his teeth. After seeing this, he took a wand out of his pocket, his smile fading, and he looked warily at the gritty boy whose emerald green eyes seemed to shine with both power and fury.

"It is time," muttered Cornelius Fudge, wand trained on Harry, "for you to fulfil your purpose in life. It is time for You-Know-Who to die."

**A/N: **Again, please review.


	2. The Puppet and Puppeteer

Pathway to Doom:

**A/N: **Would you prefer longer chapters and updates less often, or shorter chapters and updates more often?

Chapter One: The Puppet and Puppeteer:

Harry was seething.

First of all, he'd lived a happy life (at least, that was what he thought; he could not remember) for just over a year, and then a whacko Dark Lord had come to try and kill him.

That, Harry thought, had to be enough trauma in a child's life. Then, apparently, he had disposed of the guy who'd been terrorizing everyone – it should have been a good thing, he thought – but instead of being patted on the back and told he was a good boy, they'd locked him up in a cell.

Not only did it not add up, it made Harry very mad that someone thought that they could lock him up, and then he'd happily jump up and go, 'yep, I'll fight this YouKnowWho for you! Show me the way!'

And most of all, Harry thought, he was not just around to get rid of this guy. Would they lock him up again, then?

So Harry, still only being a young teenager, and a very bitter one at that, did the best thing he could think of. He turned his back on the man, and stared defiantly at the wall of his cell. His voice was croaky from disuse, so he sounded a little unnerving. "I won't do it."

The man's eyes would widen, Harry predicted, and he would be stared at. He really didn't care. He seemed to have judged the shock value right though, when the man said, "_what?_"

However, the man continued, after taking a deep breath. "You're going to leave everyone to be killed by that… that… _thing_? What kind of monster are you!"

"What kind of monster is a man who locks up children for something they can't help?" Harry sneered, furious with the tears that were threatening to fall. He swiped at his eyes with a hand, resulting in just smearing dirt down his face so that he looked like he was playing the Muggle game of Cowboys and Indians.

"You are not just a child. You can make a big difference. Besides," sniffed the man, "the amounts of darkness it must have took for you to deflect a spell fuelled on hatred… you are not normal, not human. You're just another dark creature."

Harry whirled around in anger, spitting at the man's feet. "I'm just as human as you are. Probably more so, as you're just a complete imbecile!"

The man's eyes widened again, but this time Harry could see it. It was almost comical, really, he thought, although the anger in the man's eyes was not as appealing.

"How dare you, boy? I am the Minister of Magic, I am not around to be spat at by creatures like you!"

"Well," Harry ventured, letting his anger speak for him rather than his common sense, "what do you do? Run the government?" With that comment made, Harry strode over to the cell and picked up the once forgotten newspaper. The headline was still glaring out, but so was a picture of a boy lying on the floor, deathly pale with glassy eyes open in a final expression of horror. "Doing a great job there, aren't you?"

For a moment, they glared at each other. The Minister of Magic – Cornelius Fudge, Harry now knew he must be, for he had seen much written about him in the newspaper – seemed to be struggling not make a childhood insult back. Harry could almost see him thinking, 'why should I even let this boy out?' The consolation was that he could also see him retorting to such a thought with, 'but he _needs _to be out.' At this thought, Harry smiled. He knew that he'd still be getting out, but damned if he made it easy.

Apparently, though, the Minister had come to a compromise. Truthfully, Fudge was just trying to assert the fact that he was in the control of the situation, not Harry. He didn't feel that the boy quite understood that, and it made him angry that somebody thought they were above _him…_

"You realize that we can't let you go straight out there, and that you need to learn how to practise some spells. Therefore, you will be spending the time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Fudge's lip curled a bit. He had been against this, but Dumbledore had insisted that he needed to practically learn some things, and that he could learn with his peers and learn some of the easier spells with teachers on a one-on-one basis. However, Fudge knew that this may decrease the time it took to rid the world of Voldemort, so he'd let it happen.

But Fudge still ad to have a little revenge for the boy implying that he was incompetent.

"You will stay there tonight, and you can take a portkey tomorrow morning." Fudge made a small grin and as he walked out of the room, leaving it to be guarded or whatever happened whilst Harry was locked up there, Harry swore he heard him say, "that's what you get for calling me an imbecile, you stupid _creature_."

As a result, Harry's anger rose once again and the door seemed to slam of its own accord, when Fudge wasn't _quite _out of it, so he was lurched forwards with a cry of surprise.

Harry stared at the door in surprise, then grinned slightly, and slid down the wall, not noticing that he grazed his back. Tomorrow, he knew, would be interesting.


End file.
